


i'll be your man (if you got love to get done)

by mindelan



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Bisexual Karen Page, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Role Reversal, Some angst, and then caretaking happens, karen is the punisher and frank's a reporter, post-Season 1, that wonderful trope, where one sneaks into the others apartment in the middle of the night wounded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindelan/pseuds/mindelan
Summary: In the world's eye, the Punisher has disappeared. Even Frank hasn't seen Karen Page in weeks and they were – well, there weresomething.He's beginning to give up hope when he hears someone tapping at his window.





	i'll be your man (if you got love to get done)

**Author's Note:**

> title from "no plan" by hozier

It’s not uncommon for the residents of Hell’s Kitchen to be up at odd hours, but tonight the city seems almost completely dark. Empty, silent, asleep.

When Frank turns his head to look outward from his apartment window, it feels as if he’s the only one awake. Rain patters softly against the window pane and against the metal of the fire  escape, whispering a soothing lullaby that tempts to put him to sleep. 

He sighs, taking another sip of his bitter coffee and hoping the caffeine will do its job to keep him from dozing off. The steam of it fogs up his reading glasses, making it all the more difficult  to see the screen in front of him. He’s been working on this article for what feels like hours now, neck and back tight from being hunched over for so long, but it’s as if he’s only just started it. While it’s not technically due until the end of the week, he wants an outline done for when he meets with a source tomorrow. It’s sloppy work not to have all the details, and Frank is anything except sloppy. 

It’s an important story – he’s trying to expose a drug trafficking ring – but he knows it’s not what the Bulletin readers want. They want pieces about the Punisher, but nobody’s heard from Karen in weeks, and he’s not going to make up lies about her just to please the public. 

A tap at his window. 

Frank’s head jerks up, squinting out into the darkness. Nothing. The hazy, glowing light from his apartment obscures anything that might be lingering outside his room. He almost dismisses it as a figment of his imagination until it happens again, this time with a bit more urgency, so he grabs his .380 off of the coffee table next to him and goes to investigate, ignoring the alarm bells that go off in his head.  

 _Breathe_ , he tells himself, keeping his hands steady despite the nervousness he feels thrumming through his body. What if it’s one of Fisk’s men? The last he’d heard, Fisk was still locked up, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have people on the outside. If he’d somehow heard about what happened to Wesley – 

Another tap. Frank throws his window open and aims his gun down toward the fire escape. 

Karen Page grins up at him, eyes glassy and blood staining her teeth red. There's a bruise staining the side of her face black and blue.  “Hey, Frank,” she murmurs from where she’s curled up in the corner, voice raspy and deep. Her blonde hair is hidden by the black knit cap she’s wearing, but he undoubtedly knows it’s her. “Mind if I come in?” 

For a moment, he just blinks down at her, staring and unable to say anything. The last time he’d heard from now Karen had been weeks ago, when she’d saved his life at the hotel and seemingly disappeared without a word. Hell, he hadn’t even been sure that she was alive – though he suspects he would have known if she were dead. He doesn’t know how to describe it, but – him and her, they’ve got some sort of connection. There’s no denying that.

Then his good sense comes back to him. He blinks, shaking his head as if to clear the fog. 

“Shit, ma’am,” he curses, finally noting the way the rain washes off the blood from her porcelain skin. Her heavy armor and dark clothes must be covering up a wound he can’t see, but what he does notice is the blood pooling in her collarbone, gravity pulling it to trail down her left side. “Jesus Christ. You hurt?” 

“Just a graze,” she says lightly, breathily – as if a graze is nothing to be worried about – but accepts his help to clamber into his apartment. Though her hands are gloved, he can imagine the feel of her cold skin against his, and he shivers at the contact.

Just how long had she been out here before he’d heard her? The beginnings of guilt creep into his mind, but he pushes them down. He’s got her now. 

“You stay here,” Frank tells her, concern tugging his brows downward. Her right arm curls around her body worryingly. “I’m going to get you cleaned up.” 

“You don’t have to – ” 

“With all due respect, ma’am,” he drawls tightly, resisting the urge to shake her by the shoulders, “ _you_ came to _me_. What did you expect me to do, leave you be while you’re like this?” 

“I should go,” she mutters, turning away from him, and nope, he’s not going to let her leave in this condition, not like this, not when he hasn’t seen her in what feels like forever. 

“Would you just let me take care of you for just _five goddamn minutes?”_ he asks tersely, his voice raising at the end. Karen, to her credit, doesn’t react to the change in volume, merely raises her chin defiantly. “Damn it, Page, you come in here bleedin’ and shit – ” 

“I’ll stay.” 

It’s so quiet he almost misses it. He asks to confirm, “You’ll stay?” 

She nods jerkily, wrapping both her arms around herself to stay warm. Her entire body is drenched, water dripping from her hair onto his carpet, and her lips have the slightest tint of blue; her Punisher armor seemingly doing nothing to fight off the cold, making him wonder what’s the point of all that extra material if not to protect her fully. 

He comes back into the living room with his arms full of towels and medical supplies, dumping most of it down on his coffee table which disrupts his earlier workspace. It doesn’t matter – he doubts he’ll be getting anymore writing done tonight anyway. 

“C’mere,” he tells her, holding out a towel and motioning for her to come into his embrace. There’s more authority in his voice than he really feels; Karen showing up on his fire escape at two in the morning is an unexpected happening and he has no idea what to do to really help her. What if she needs real medical attention? He supposes he could call Matt to call Claire, but that’ll likely be more trouble than she wants deal with. For now, however – “We gotta get you dry.” 

Karen takes a couple steps forward and he wraps a towel around her head and shoulders like a cloak. His arms linger on hers for a second, rubbing gently as if that’ll do anything. When she flinches, however, he pulls away quickly. Hurting her, even accidentally, is something he never wants to do. She’s had enough pain in her life without him adding to it. “You said you got shot.” 

 _“Grazed_ _,_ actually.” 

“Same thing,” he tells her, as if he really knows what he’s talking about despite never being shot in his life. “Tell me what happened.” _Tell me why you’re here_ , he really means, because there has to be a reason, has to be some sort of explanation for why she shows up  _now_ without contacting him for weeks. 

“Bastard got me in the meat of my shoulder, on my back. Right above this,” she raps her knuckles against her chest piece gently. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your night, but I can’t stitch it closed on my own. And I don’t. . .” she trails off, and he wonders what she would have said to finish that sentence but never gets an answer. 

He’s silent for too long; she must take it the wrong way. “I shouldn’t have come,” she tries to jerk away, but he reaches for her before he knows what he’s doing. “I’m sorry, Frank.” 

“You’re here now,” he says gruffly. “At least let me wrap it up for you before you go. Get you some dry clothes.” What he really wants is for her to stay the night, but he doesn’t push his luck. Not yet. 

Karen studies him for a moment, eyes sharp despite the pain and exhaustion that must be flooding through her body. “All right,” she says slowly, then repeats it with more certainty. “All right. I’ll stay.” 

 _For a little bit_ , goes unspoken, but Frank’ll take what he can get. From Karen, he’ll take whatever she can give. 

He clears his throat, shifts on his feet uncomfortably, doesn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Karen breaks the silence for him and turns around, facing the window. “Can you help me with this?” 

That he can do; it’s good, it’ll keep his hands busy. They don’t talk in the few minutes that it takes to get the majority of her body armor off, but they don’t need to. Whenever she grunts in pain or shifts away from him, he lets her figure out a way to make it hurt less on her own, whether that’s to breath through it or to direct his hands somewhere else that might make it more comfortable. 

Once they get it off, it clatters to the floor. The mess doesn’t bother him in the slightest – Frank’s more focused on the blood-soaked stain on the back of her shirt and neck, not quite hidden by the darkness of her shirt. “Might be easier to cut this off,” he hedges, not quite looking at her in the eye. 

“It’s ruined already,” Karen waves him off, shrugging her good shoulder. “Just do it.” 

She seemingly isn’t bothered by taking her shirt off in front of him, so he steels himself and does as she says. The skin that’s exposed to him is littered in bruises and managed scars – some fresh, some old – and all he can do for a second is wonder how the hell she’s survived this long. 

 _She’s strong, so fuckin’ strong_. 

“Frank?” 

_Right. Get it together, Castle._

“M’here,” he says. The graze is long, going from the base of her neck and to the end of her right shoulder. It doesn’t look deep enough to need stitches, but he’s not a doctor – he’s got no fucking clue what it needs. Any wound looks bad to him, regardless. “I’m gonna clean it up a bit. Doesn’t look too bad, though.” 

Karen hums in reply. Goosebumps appear on her skin, rippling over her back, and he tells himself that it has nothing to do with his touch, that it’s only her reaction to being cold. Though her hair has stopped dripping, her pants are still wet and sticking to her legs, a droplet of water drips down from her shoulder and over the curve of her spine –  

_Focus._

When he wipes an alcohol soaked cotton pad over the wound, she hisses and stiffens, but doesn’t move away from him despite being in what must be an immense amount of pain. Muscles shift underneath her skin, showing him just how physically strong she actually is. Absently, he wonders how many men she’s punished tonight, how much more blood is on her hands, and the idea doesn’t disgust him like it normally does. 

She’s a killer, but he isn’t exactly a good person, either. The scary thing is that with the more time that passes, he finds himself understanding her more and more. Maybe they aren’t as different as he’d originally thought. 

“Don’t think it needs stitches,” he tells her once he’s done, scrutinizing the cut much easier now that it’s clean. “You wanna check?” 

“No,” she murmurs. “I trust your judgement.” 

An eyebrow arches. “You sure ‘bout that, ma’am?” 

“It’s Karen,” she shoots back, but after all this time, he still can’t bring himself to call her that. Karen Page is the name plastered all over the media, ma’am is the name just for them. “And yes. I’m sure.” 

The tips of his ears redden, and he’s glad that he’s behind her so she can’t see warmth on his face. “All right.” 

He reaches for a bandage in his meager first-aid kit, making a note to buy more supplies for it in the future. It’ll come in handy, especially if Karen starts making a routine out of visiting him when she’s injured – and even if not, God only knows he gets into enough trouble by himself. Carefully, he smoothes the gauze over the length of the wound and tapes down the edges, lifting up the edge of her bra strap gingerly to make sure it’s all covered. 

Karen doesn’t move nor does she speak during this process. When he takes his hands off of her, she sways. 

 _“Shit!”_ he swears, catching her by the biceps gently and spinning her around to face him. Her eyes are half-lidded, lips parted slightly, looking as if in a daze. “Ma’am? You still with me?” 

“Cold,” is all she mumbles, and he knows he’s made a mistake in not warming her up before taking care of her wound. 

He guides her to his couch, sitting her down and wrapping a shitty throw blanket around her shoulders. She grasps it weakly with her left hand, holding it closed over her front, but she’s not shivering anymore. It’s not cold in his living room, but he knows how the chill can sink into one’s bones when wet and outside for too long. 

Kneeling in front of her, he pauses with his hands hovering over the clasp of her pants. If it were possible, his face gets even redder. He’s imagined this situation many times before, but with entirely different circumstances. “We gotta get these off of you,” he tells her softly, blinking up at her. “Can I. . .” 

It’s intimate, far too intimate than anything they’ve done with each other thus far. It’s never come up – their relationship, at least outwardly, has always been strictly professional. He wants to make sure that he’s not crossing a line here, and lets out a relieved sigh when she nods slowly, head bobbing against her chest. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” he orders as he unbuttons her jeans and begins to slide them off of her.  She lifts her hips up to help him get them off but does nothing more, eyes fluttering open and shut, then lets him tug the blanket tighter over her nearly naked-form. “I’ll be right back. You need to stay awake.” 

Though she’s conscious now, Frank still hurries when he goes into his bedroom and grabs her one of his shirts. She looks so, so small on the couch; he has a hard time juxtaposing this woman and the one with the skull embolden on her chest, but he knows they’re one and the same. Looks can be deceiving, and oh, how Karen Page has continuously worked to deceive the world. 

“Here, c’mere,” he urges, leaning down to tug the shirt over her head and helps her get left arm through the hole. Her face isn’t as pale anymore and she’s begun to tremble, which, with his limited knowledge, knows is a good sign. 

As much as he wants to pull her into his arms to warm her up with his body heat, he knows he’s pushing it already. Anything else might scare her away. Instead, he offers her another blanket and watches as she tucks it around her legs, effectively cocooning herself. 

He stands awkwardly in front of her, arms crossed over his chest. His laptop has long turned off, but his notes are still scattered on his coffee table underneath the medical supplies he’d dumped on top of it. 

Karen notices, keen eyes darting between the two, and asks even though she probably already knows the answer, “Why weren’t you asleep?” 

“Working on a story,” he tells her, running a hand over his hair. “Wanted to get a a bit of it done before tomorrow.” 

“It _is_ tomorrow.” A glance at the clock tells him that Karen’s been here for a little over a half-hour, making it closer to three than two. 

“Before I go to work, then,” he mutters, shooting her a look – one that she smiles cheekily at, “if you’re going t’be so picky.” 

She inclines her head. “You need to sleep, Frank.” 

“Yeah, well. You’re one to talk, ma’am – if you’ll excuse me for sayin’ that.” 

There’s that silence again, interrupted only by the pattering of rain against his windowpane. If the weather is still like this tomorrow, then it’s going to be a pain in the ass meeting his source. He doubts they’ll agree to meet him in a place as public as a café or coffeehouse, so standing in the cold huddled under an umbrella while they talk is likely. He’s not looking forward to it. 

“I should get going.” 

Karen’s voice startles him out of his thoughts, stronger now. When he turns back to her, she’s standing on shaky legs, one of the blankets pooled around her legs, covering her feet entirely. There’s a perverse sort of satisfaction in seeing her in one of his shirts, hitting her just mid-thigh despite them being almost the same height. So much of her leg is exposed, but he ignores that in favor of focusing on her words. “What are you talkin’ about?” 

“You’ve got work to do,” she motions to his computer, biting her lip in an extremely distracting way. “And I don’t want to. . .impose.” 

“No, fuck – you’re never imposin’.” _Not you, never you._

“I barged into your apartment in the middle of the night and I’m not imposing?” Her eyebrows raise, a wry smile tugging up at the side of her mouth as she says it. “Pretty sure that’s the exact definition of it, Frank.”

He takes a step forward, shaking his head. “You’re hurt and wet and cold, and if you go back out there right now, you’re gonna get sick. You can stay the night, sleep on the couch – ” 

“It’s not good if I stay here,” she interrupts, shaking her head and pinches her temples. “I’m not good for you, Frank.” 

That hurts him, because he’s tried so hard in the past to tell her otherwise. “Then why’d you come?” 

She shifts on her feet, pulling the blanket tighter around her, and doesn’t answer. Something passes over her face, but she jerks her chin to the side so he can barely discern it. He sees enough, though. She wears her heart on her sleeve sometimes, and right now he knows she’s feeling vulnerable. Entreating words are the last thing she needs right now. 

Frank lets out a heavy exhale, blowing the air out of his nose. He takes off his reading glasses and rubs at his forehead. “Sit down before you fall over.” He doesn’t know if that’ll work, but he adds at the end anyway, _“_ _please_ _,_ ma’am.” 

Surprisingly, it does. Karen perches at the end of his couch, looking as if she’s ready to get up and run any second now, but she’s still here and that’s what matters. He’ll keep telling himself that if he has to.

He sits down next to her, leaning forward until his arms hang over his knees, hands clasped. He isn’t strong enough to look at her (isn’t strong like her), so he focuses on the ground instead as he tries to put his thoughts in order. 

“Frank. . .”

“No, let me think,” he says, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees her nod once. “I don’t know why you’re here, Page. After all these months of stayin’ away, you finally show up again. I can’t keep doin’ this. You’re either a part of my life or you’re not. It’s simple.” 

While he hates that he has to be harsh, he knows he has to present her with this ultimatum. The past few weeks, the uncertainty around whether she’s alive or dead has left him tossing and turning at night. He hates living like this, hates caring about her when he doesn’t know if she even gives a shit around him. 

(But, the voice in the back of his head says, she wouldn’t keep coming back if she didn’t, wouldn’t protect him if she didn’t.)

“I shouldn’t have come,” she murmurs. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t – I couldn’t stay away.” 

“Why not?” 

“I think you know, Frank,” she says with a self-deprecating smile. He finally looks at her, but she won’t look at him, eyes darting around his living room. 

He’s pretty sure that he does, but he wants to hear her say it. Wants the words to leave her mouth and be spoken out-loud, because that makes them more real, makes them more than thoughts and dreams and wishes that they both share but are too scared to ever say. 

“I don’t,” he says evenly, roughly. “Tell me why, Karen.” 

She stares at him, open and completely raw, all of the layers stripped. He thinks that if he looks close enough, he’ll be able to see her soul, bared completely to him. “Because I care about you,” she whispers, “and I don’t know how to stop. I’m not a good person. I’m selfish. I can’t give you up.” 

A tension-filled moment crackles through the air, the two of them staring at each other with just about everything out in the open. His eyes dart down to her lips and before he knows it, he’s leaning forward and pressing his mouth to hers gently. 

It’s hardly a kiss, more like a brush of their lips. Karen’s the one who pulls away after a few seconds, looking dazed and like she wants to lean back in for another as she closes her eyes, sharing the same breaths. 

When she realizes what she’d just done, anguish fills her eyes, body posture tensed and ready to run. He can almost see the memories of Maria and her kids flashing in her eyes, can almost feel the guilt that’s running through her veins at kissing someone else. For being with someone else when her family is dead. 

“Hey, shh,” he comforts, reaching out to grab her hands and hold them gently in his own, loose enough where she could pull away if she wanted to. She doesn’t. “Listen, m’not tryin’ to replace your family, okay? You know that, right?” 

“I do,” she whispers, and he believes her. “It’s just – the last person I kissed was my wife. Maria. All those years ago. So this is. . .” she swallows. “It’s a lot. But I want this.” 

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he promises. “You bein’ here, that’s enough for me.” 

And it is. Whatever she can give him, it’s enough so long that she wants to be here. 

“I can’t promise anything,” she says, as if that’ll make him change his mind. 

“You don’t have to.” 

After studying him for a couple beats, she leans back into the couch cushions and sighes, closing her eyes. “I could use a place to stay for the rest of the night,” she admits, and his heart skips a beat. That admission couldn’t have been easy for her. 

“You can take the bed,” he offers up, trying not to sound so hopeful. “I was planning on sleepin’ out here anyway.” 

“All right,” she says slowly, standing up once again. He wants to stand and go with her, but he can’t. Not tonight, but maybe in the future she’ll let him hold her the way he wants to. 

She bends over to pick up her clothes, but he beats her to it. “I’ll hang these up to dry,” he rasps, grabbing them before she can. “You go get some sleep.” 

“Thank you.” 

He has to ask. “Will you be here in the morning?” 

Karen pauses in her walk to his bedroom, the blanket around her shoulders swaying with the movement. 

Frank adds quickly, as if to sweeten the pot, “I’ll make you breakfast.” 

At that, she laughs, a small, tinkering sound. Looks over her shoulder as if to see if he’s still there. “I’ll see you in the morning, Frank.” 

With that, she disappears around the corner. He rubs his hand over his face, a smile curling at his lips despite himself. When he pulls his computer back onto his lap to get working on his article, there’s a warmth in his chest that doesn’t seem to dissipate, even as the hours go by. 

(He doesn’t finish his outline, but that’s okay. Karen’s still there in the morning, and he makes her eggs. Before she leaves at the crack of dawn, she gives him a slip of paper with one number in it.

Hers.)

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! this is my first time writing for this fandom, so i hope i got the characterization right. i wanted to switch their roles without changing their personalities, so hopefully that shines through sklfjghld
> 
> i'm not positive if a similar role reversal has been written before (i know the scenario itself is very common) so i thought i'd take my stab at it
> 
> feel free to reach out to me on tumblr @[athalar](https://athalar.tumblr.com)!


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